


Target Practice

by crrrrabby



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: AFAB reader - Freeform, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Flirting, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Oral Sex, Other, Reader-Insert, Rough Sex, Smut, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-04 15:35:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14596152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crrrrabby/pseuds/crrrrabby
Summary: Your new job as an assistant engineer stationed in the middle of the desert pays more than you expected, but how often you get shot at is less than ideal. Luckily, someone who's very good at killing people from a distance is willing to help.





	1. Chapter 1

You manage to go a couple weeks at your new job before you finally get shot at.

You’re outside, carrying a delivery of small parts to Engineer’s workshop, when it happens. There are human figures and the hulking mass of a vehicle in the distance, on the other side of the chain link fence circling the base, and you’re squinting at them, trying to decide what you’re looking at when the first gunshot rings out. You barely have time to register a bullet whizzing by you before you realize what exactly is going on. You drop what you’re carrying and scramble, diving into cover behind some crates. There’s more gunshots, loud ones, then three softer ones, each of them punctuated by a wet noise.

You freeze up, terrified. All you can think is how you’ve never been shot at before, oh God, nothing in your higher education prepared you for this. You’re an engineer, for Christ’s sake, not a soldier! You’re just supposed to be some friendly southern gentleman’s assistant! They told you this job was dangerous but the reality of your situation hadn’t sunk in until now.

“What the hell are you doing?!” shouts an Australian accent off in the distance. You peek over the box hesitantly, and there’s Sniper, up in his roost, leaning out through the window and hollering at you. “Get the fuck back inside!”

You don’t hesitate to bolt to the entrance, slamming your fist on the button for the alert siren as you skid on the metal flooring, barely stopping before you race down the halls, past several mercs running in the opposite direction. You hide in the relative safety of the Engineer’s workshop until the all-clear announcement is made.

* * *

 

Dell gives you a low whistle when he returns from the firefight and you tell him you were the one who triggered the alarm.

“Finally seeing some of the action, huh?” he jokes, but his voice is flatter than it usually is when he’s joking, like he doesn’t think it’s all that funny.

You reply with a nervous chuckle and busy yourself with organizing machine parts.

You’re not alone with Dell for long before Sniper comes knocking on the door. You let him in, but he just leans against the door frame, arms crossed.

You hardly ever see Sniper up close, since it seems he spends most of his time in his van or in the sniper’s nest, so this is a rare treat for you. Many of the mercs are pretty nice to look at, and it’s hard for you to deny that Sniper in particular checks a lot of your boxes. It’s not entirely professional of you to check out the lean muscle in his biceps and the light brushing of hair on his forearms, made visible by his rolled-up sleeves, but you do it anyway.

“One of the sentries is all mangled,” he says, pointedly looking past you and talking to Dell instead. “Dunno if there’s more of those wankers on the way, so you’d best fix it sooner rather than later.”

Dell nods towards you, already turning back to what he was doing. “I’m busy with this. They can handle it. Show ‘em where it’s at.”

Sniper doesn’t move from his spot, just looks you over and silently raises an eyebrow at the Engineer.

Dell fixes him with a stern look, his mouth pressed into a hard, thin line. “They’re my assistant for a reason,” he says, his tone lightly scolding. “I picked this one myself.”

To your surprise, Sniper doesn’t protest any further, just gestures for you to follow him and goes stalking off down the hall. You grab your toolkit and a box of spare sentry parts and take off after him. You have to jog a little to catch up, his long legs naturally moving more briskly than yours.

It’s a little awkward, walking next to him in complete silence.

“Thanks for saving my ass earlier,” you say, in an attempt to lessen the bad atmosphere.

Sniper just grunts in response. His head turns marginally to glance at you, and you must look put out by his reaction because he says, gruffly, “Don’t mention it, mate.” There’s another moment of quiet before he adds, “You oughta start carrying a gun.”

“I don’t think it’d do much good,” you say, the corners of your mouth twitching into a wry smile, “since I don’t know how to shoot.”

“You’re joking.” He looks at you more directly, his mouth slightly ajar. 

“I’ve spent my time in school reading textbooks, not shooting guns at… wherever it is you learn to be a mercenary.”

“Crikey,” he mutters, furrowing his brow when he sees that you really aren’t kidding. “You’re not gonna last ‘round here much longer than the other ones, are ya?”

“Wait, what?” you ask, stopping your tracks. Sniper takes a few more steps before he realizes you’re not following. “I didn’t know I wasn’t the first to be hired for this position. Did the last ones… quit?”

“Ah. Whoops,” he says, turning to look at you and putting his hands back on his hips. He looks uncomfortable, his face contorted into a grimace, as though a kid just asked him where babies come from and he’s not looking forward to explaining it. “Guess they didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what,” you say, flatly, icily.

“Well,” he says, cringing even harder, “two of ‘em  _ did _ quit. After they got shot. The other two, uh… also got shot. And didn’t get a chance to quit.”

“Oh, fantastic!” you say, sarcastically, heading off down the hallway again. “They said there were ‘workplace hazards’ but not that the previous junior engineers DIED. Is that legal? Not disclosing that people DIE on the job?”

He snorts loudly. “Nothing about this job is legal.”

You allow yourself a short, frustrated yell. “Ugh! I knew the pay was too good to be true.”

He leads you outside to the broken sentry, which is sending out sparks through a hole in its exterior plating.

“What happened?” you ask, setting down your tools.

“I don’t know,” he says, gesturing at the sparking sentry. “I’m not a bloody scientist - probably someone just shot it. Could’ve even been one of the gremlins on our side.”

“Hm,” is all you give him in response before you break open the maintenance hatch. The inside is sparking worse than the outside, and you cut the power to the sentry before you can electrocute yourself.

It doesn’t take long to figure out the problem - Sniper was right, a bullet shot through the exterior and lodged itself in the inner workings. You start working on repairing the damage, but quickly notice him still standing there in your periphery.

You turn, furrowing your brow at him. “What’re you standing around for?”

Sniper seems suddenly aware of how awkward he looks just loitering and watching you. He busies himself with adjusting his hat. “Dunno,” he says, sounding a bit lost. “Didn’t know if you needed anything else.”

It’s your turn to furrow your brow at him. “No?” you say, lilting your voice like you’re asking a question. “ _ This  _ is what I’m trained to do. I think I’ve got it.”

“Right,” he says, and he walks away, even though something in his voice sounds unsure.

* * *

 

You thought Sniper mostly kept to himself, but maybe you were wrong, because he seems to be hanging around more often recently.

You bump into him with surprising regularity, usually in the kitchenette in the mornings. He gets up before you, so by the time you turn up, he’s already there scarfing down toast and some sort of unidentifiable meat. You shamelessly leech off of the pot of coffee he brews every day at 6:30 AM like clockwork, shooting him a grin and an apology whenever he catches you pouring yourself a mug before you head to Dell’s workshop. If he minds, he never tells you so, but on the rare occasion where you’re finishing off the last of the pot, he asks you to brew a second helping and bring the pot his nest when you’re done. You figure that’s a fair trade.

A few times you catch him in the halls of the nearly labyrinthian central building. He’s usually busy talking to one of the other mercs, so you don’t often get the chance to chat with him, but he rarely fails to spare you a polite smile and a wave as you pass, which is more than you can say for some of your other so-called coworkers.

When you do get a chance to make small talk, it leaves you wondering if perhaps he’s not so surly after all. He really only has about three non-combat-related topics he can cycle through - the weather, the local wildlife, and asking “how’s that thing you’re building going, eh?” He’s perfectly enthusiastic when telling you about the hawk he saw nabbing a jack rabbit that morning, or musing endlessly about how he thinks “it’s gonna rain, mate, didja see those clouds rollin’ in?” But the second you broach any topic he’s not prepared for, you get clipped answers and he finds an excuse to leave.

You’re beginning to think that maybe he’s just awkward and socially stunted from spending so much time alone.

* * *

 

One night, when most of the mercs have gathered around the large table near the kitchen to drink and play card games, you see him laugh - really laugh - for the first time.

You were a little intimidated when Engineer suggested you join in. Drinking with a bunch of crude mercenaries whose personalities mostly ranged from “slightly unhinged” to “criminally insane” seemed like a terrible idea. But, aside from a couple of death threats being tossed around and one attempted stabbing, the men are not terrible drinking buddies and the conversation is definitely lively. You’re surprised to find how readily they accept you into the group.

You’ve all been hitting the bottle pretty hard, and Scout makes a joke at Spy’s expense. You don’t hear it, but Sniper does. He lets out a ridiculous snort and then launches in a full laugh, tossing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut. You can’t help but notice that he looks really handsome with a grin on his face. Fleetingly, you wonder if he’d be a suave ladykiller like Spy if he was at all capable of holding a conversation that isn’t about the best way to murder people.

Throughout the night people are getting up and grabbing things from the kitchen and switching seats, and at some point Sniper ends up sitting next to you when most everyone else is out of the room.

“Can’t believe you don’t know how to bloody shoot,” he says to you as he shuffles the deck of cards, his words slurring a little bit. “Whattya expect to do if one of us ain’t around to have your back?”

You shrug at him, grinning. “Guess I’ll just die.”

He scoffs. “Bang-up plan, mate.”

He deals cards out to himself, you, Engineer, and Heavy, the only ones left at the table for the time being. You watch his hands carefully and try not to think of the naughty things you’d like him to be doing with them.

“I could teach you,” Sniper says as he checks his cards, with an air of mock casualness. “To shoot,” he clarifies. You’re just barely sober enough to still tell when someone is asking a question and hoping for a particular answer.

You hesitate, glancing over at Dell, who just smiles and raises his brows at you in a knowing sort of look. You wish you knew whatever it is that he knows because you haven’t the foggiest why Sniper would even make that suggestion.

So you just reply, “Sure,” and Sniper grunts in response and smiles a little.

You hardly mind losing so badly at poker that night.

* * *

 

“Never seen a merc hold a gun more wrong than you’re holding that rifle now,” Sniper says to you, scornfully.

You let out a loud, exasperated noise, pulling the scope of the rifle away from your face. “Maybe because I’m not a merc,” you reply, “I’m an engineer.”

“Engineer’s an engineer _ and _ a merc,” he shoots back, scowling. “You’re here in the fort and you’re his assistant so you’re a bloody merc.”

“Debatable,” you say as he stalks over to rip the rifle from your hands. “This is a temporary arrangement. I don’t intend to making a living this way like he does. I just took this job because it pays so much better than any other entry level position, apparently because of the much higher probability of getting  _ shot _ .”

You can see his eyes rolling behind his yellow shades and he tilts his head back far enough that his hat nearly falls off. “Crikey, why the hell did they hire you? Is getting poor lil eggheads killed part of the master plan now?” he asks, more to the ceiling than to you. “Getting shot - that’s exactly why you should be reconsidering your job title, don’t ya think?” He sends another critical look in your direction. 

“I’m not supposed to be part of the fighting. I’m just supposed to be helping Dell with his projects and staying off the battlefield.” You’re getting a little irritated with him now. This wasn’t in your contract, and it was his stupid idea to teach you how to shoot. It seemed like it’d be more fun when you were drunk.

“But the whole damn _lot_ is the bloody battlefield! There is no ‘off’ or ‘on.’” He faces you again and gestures imploringly. “Are you planning on fighting someone off with just a damn wrench, hm? No, I’d reckon not. The idea is to kill them before they get close enough to kill _you_ , mate, because if it’s down to you and them, it’ll be you taking the dirt nap, I guarantee it.”

You frown. This is probably the most he’s ever spoken to you and it’s just so he can tell you that you’re gonna die. 

He notices how deflated you look and his expression softens, just a little. “You’ve got to hold it more like this,” he says, performing the action for you and gazing through the scope. He gestures to a part that you can’t name because it’s not something that would ever be on a turret, and says, “This bit’s got to go up against your shoulder, see?”

You don’t see, but you wordlessly take the rifle back when he hands it to you and you do your best to copy what he’d done. You point the barrel out through window of the sniping post and squint into the scope.

He releases a weary sigh. “That’s… better,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he means it. “Here, let me…”

He steps closer to you, slightly behind you and to one side, his hands hovering inches away from your arms for a second, like he’s not sure he should be touching you. You draw your face back from the rifle and turn your head to watch one of his hands, but you don’t flinch away. Sniper seems to recognize this as permission, and huffs out a breath as he places his hands on top of your arms, repositioning them, adjusting your grip on the gun. His hand is bigger than yours, you observe with a detached sort of amusement as he slides it back up your wrist. It’s also warm. And sort of sweaty. He’s leaning in closer to you and you catch a whiff of what might be beef jerky. 

“That’s it,” he says, his voice low and gravelly and way too close to your ear. His hands are at your elbows now, gently guiding you to look into the scope again. “Focus on the target. Keep your breathing steady.”

You don’t think you’re breathing at all.

You pull the trigger and startle yourself with the recoil, even though it’s minimal. You peek over the rifle and see that you’ve only barely grazed the edge of the wooden target Sniper set up for you, sending splinters flying all over in the desert dust.

He barks out a laugh. “Awright!” he says, giving you a smack on the back and nearly sending your eye into the scope. “That’s not too bad, first-timer. I thought you’d miss by a mile!”

* * *

 

“How’s the shootin’ lessons going?” asks Dell, conversationally.

“Could be better, could be worse,” you say, hunching further over the wires you’re attempting to solder. “Sniper’s not exactly teacher of the year, but he’s patient with me even though I’ve got no talent for it. I’m getting better, I think.”

Engineer hums lowly. “That’s good,” he says, fiddling with something at his workbench. “He was real worried about you not knowin’ how to protect yourself.”

You look up, brow furrowed, craning your neck to look at Dell. “Worried?” you ask, incredulously.

“Well,” he amends, sounding a little sheepish. “As far as I can tell, he was. You know how he is by now, he keeps his feelings locked up tight - most of us do. But he kept bringin’ up to everyone about how you were inadequately prepared for combat, and what if anything went wrong and so on, so I figured he musta been concerned. I think he expected one of us to offer to train you.”

You don’t know what to say, so you just give him a hum of mild agreement. You turn back to your work and the two of you are quiet for a minute.

“Not to pry or speculate or anything, but,” he says, breaking the silence, “we ain’t got no policies here against workplace romance.”

“Dell! Honestly,” you groan, exaggerating how scandalized you are. “Nothing’s going on with me and Sniper.”

“I just think a man who spends all his time alone and starin’ down a scope could probably use some company now and then,” he says, his voice gentle. “And you seem to like him well enough, so.”

He abruptly drops the subject after that, and you don’t pick it back up.

* * *

 

During your next lesson with Sniper, you’re distracted.  You completely miss a target for the third time that day and you cuss loudly, fighting the urge to throw the rifle on the wooden floor of the tower.

“Oi,” he says, fixing you with a look that’s inscrutable behind the glare of the sun on his shades. “What’s wrong with you? Two days ago you were starting to hit bullseyes and now you couldn’t hit the target if you were standing right next to the bloody thing.”

“Nothing’s  _ wrong  _ with me,” you snap at him, irritated.

“S’not what I meant, and you know it,” he says, lowering the volume of his voice a little, as though he’s talking to a startled animal. 

You can’t stop thinking about what Engineer told you before. You can’t stop wondering if maybe Sniper really was worried about you, whether he’d actually like some company. Wondering if maybe these lessons were all just an excuse to spend some time with you, and then scolding yourself for such wishful thinking.

What’s even worse is that it’s getting harder to deny how attractive you find him.

You’ve met up with him for several lessons now and the fact that you actually  _ have  _ to stare at him when he’s demonstrating something for you - rather than taking shameful peeks when you think he’s not looking - is not helping with your problem. You’ve had more than enough time to memorize his jawline and the natural shape of his five o’clock shadow, more than enough time to appreciate the age lines starting to form in his face. You’ve had to watch him reload the rifle with deft fingers more times than you can count.

“Dell said you insisted on teaching me to shoot because you were  _ worried _ ,” you blurt out, and it sounds more accusatory than you would like.

His face falls immediately. “Aw, piss,” he swears, dropping the butt of his cigarette and stomping on it with more force than necessary. “Look, I know you’re an adult and you can take care of yourself. I’m not trying to coddle you, I’m no mother hen, just - I thought it’d be - a shame. If something happened.” He’s got his head ducked down low, staring at the ground, his hands on his hips. Almost like he’s embarrassed and trying to hide it.

You’re distracted for a moment by how nice his big hands look framing his waist before you digest what he’s said and think of a response.

“You think I’m insulted?” you ask, your brows raising. “I’ve got no illusions that I’m at all capable in a firefight, Sniper.”

He looks up, his eyebrows climbing just like yours. “Why’re you asking about it then?”

“I was just wondering why you would bother,” you say, shifting the rifle in your grip awkwardly. “You don’t seem like the type to meddle or go out of your way for other people.”

“M’not,” he mumbles. He steps forward, gently pulling the rifle out of your grasp and turning to set it against the wall. “Told you. Just thought it’d be a shame. Dell’s gone through enough assistants and you’re the first not to go blubberin’ about it when you get shot at. That’s a rare quality in you academic types.”

“We’re not done for the day yet, are we?” you ask, standing up from the wooden crate you were sitting on. “I barely got any practice.”

“Your head’s not in it,” he says, turning to you and crossing his arms firmly across his chest. “No point in wasting bullets.”

You snatch up the rifle and sit back down, getting back into position to shoot again. “My head won’t be in it when we’re under attack, either. So shut up and help me fix my aim.”

You don’t miss his smile on his lips as he adjusts your grip.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a particularly hot day the next time you meet Sniper in his nest for a lesson.

“This blows,” you say, wiping the sweat off your brow and watching as he shows you a faster way to reload for the fortieth time. “Can’t we call it quits for today and go inside where it’s air conditioned?”

He shoots you a wide smile that threatens to make your heart stop. “What was it you said last time when _I_ wanted to stop?” he says, feigning confusion. “Oh, that’s right, you wanted to keep on going because you might not be all there during a real fight. Well, it might be hot, too, so you best power through it.”

You groan loudly. “We can practice reloading _inside_!”

Sniper promptly empties out the chamber and hands you the rifle and bullets.

“Nope. Suffering builds character,” he says. “Now try it again.”

The jackass actually has a stopwatch and times you as you reload the gun over and over.

Somewhere between your tenth and twentieth try, he sticks his hand out, grabbing at your arm, stopping you from emptying the bullet chamber again. You look over and he’s staring intently out the window, off into the distance. His other hand reaches for the extra sniper rifle he keeps by the window, just in case. You follow his gaze and see a vehicle, barely a dot just below the horizon, headed down the dirt road that leads towards the base’s gate.

That’s not unusual. The fort gets deliveries of supplies all the time.

What is unusual is him immediately crouching down, readying his gun, and telling you, quietly, “Get down outta sight.”

You drop to the floor, your rifle immediately discarded, sitting with your back to the wall next to the window. “It’s not just a supply van?” you ask.

“Dunno,” he says, not moving his gaze away from his scope at all. “Certainly didn’t see any deliveries on the schedule for today when I checked this morning. Could just be an early shipment. Could be somethin’ else.” He tilts his head towards the radio he keeps in the corner. “Radio someone and ask if anybody called ahead.”

You creep over, careful to stay out of sight, and grab the radio. “Hey, base, anyone got their ears on?” you say into the talkie, holding down the button firmly. “We got a large vehicle incoming. Any deliveries call ahead and say they were dropping off early? Over.”

The radio is silent for a good few minutes, and then Dell answers. You’re not surprised he’s the first to pick up - he keeps his radio on a shelf right above his workbench.

“Negative, pardner,” says Dell’s staticky voice. “No one’s contacted base today. Over.”

“Ask if I should shoot on sight or hold fire,” Sniper says, still unmoving from his position.

You hold the button down again and relay the message.

Another round of silence.

“Hold. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that it’s a delivery that forgot to call. Over,” replies Dell.

Sniper curses under his breath.

You stay crouched down in the corner, waiting. You wonder if you should make a run for the safety of the base, but Sniper doesn’t tell you to go, so you don’t. It feels like hours before you can finally hear the car approaching, and your legs have gone numb from the effort of crouching for so long. You’re anxious. What if it is another attempt to take over the fort? Are you safe up here? You watch a bead of sweat make its way down the side of Sniper’s face and suddenly realize you’ve totally tuned out the feeling of sweat on your skin.

You hear the van’s engine suddenly kick up, and immediately Sniper is cursing and muttering and adjusting his aim, his face and posture tense and focused. You’re too far from the window to see what’s going on, and it’d be dangerous to peek anyway. There’s a horrible screech, then the sound of the back doors of the van bursting open.

Sniper is firing off rounds with startling speed, nearly every one punctuated by that awful wet crunching noise you recognize from the first time you were in the line of fire. There’s more sounds of gunfire coming from the ground and an actual, honest-to-god _explosion_.

He pulls his face away from the scope - you assume the invaders have moved too far out of his line of sight because he has to alter his position drastically, resting one of his arms on the edge of the window and leaning out slightly to take another shot.

He barely gets off two more shots before the unthinkable happens.

There’s more gunfire and then a much, _much_ closer wet sound, then the sound of something splintering, and Sniper letting out a sharp, anguished cry, and you belatedly realize, as he slumps to the floor of the roost, that Sniper’s just been shot, a bullet embedded in his shoulder and another two narrowly missing him, destroying part of the frame of the window instead.

There’s red blooming on his shirt and vest, and he’s saying over and over, “Fuck, fuck, stupid, stupid,” and pressing his hand against his shoulder in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding.

Someone’s coming up the ladder, you can hear them, and Sniper’s swearing some more and trying to sit up and failing and his rifle is slipping out of his grasp and everything’s happening too fast and _you absolutely have to do something_.

So you grab your rifle from off the floor and you hold it the way he showed you to hold it and the second you see a snarling face peering over the edge of the opening in the floor, you pull the trigger, and everything is red but you, somehow, don’t register the horrible, horrible wet noise, because all you’re listening to is the pained sounds Sniper is making.

And you stay there, waiting, gun still trained on the hole, until the all-clear announcement rings out across the base.

You drop the gun and scramble for the radio to call for Medic. Sniper has the utter gall to start _chuckling_ , and you shoot him a wild-eyed stare as you shout, unprofessionally, “Sniper’s been shot, please send Medic to the nest right now!” into the radio.

He’s still got his hand pressed against his wound - should you be applying pressure too? You don’t know, you’ve never seen a bullet wound before - and he looks pale, but he’s still conscious, so that’s probably good.

“First kill, egghead,” he says, and his voice is scratchy in a way you don’t like. “How’s it feel?”

You hadn’t even thought about the fact that you just killed a man. You’re not ready to think about it, so you just say, “Not good.”

The grin on his face looks weary. “You’ll get used to it.”

* * *

 

It takes Medic at least a half hour to show up.

“Mein gott,” he says to you, surveying the damage to Sniper’s shoulder and readying his medigun. “You must learn how to relay the level of emergency better. By how panicked you sounded, I expected to find him in _much_ worse shape. I just got done reattaching four limbs, most of which belonged to the same person!”

You try not to throw up at the thought of it. You’ve done a valiant  job of ignoring the brain matter splattered on the walls of the nest, so it’s not too hard.

* * *

 

It bothers you how easily Sniper pretends it didn’t happen the next day. He greets you as usual in the kitchen, his usual pot of coffee sitting on the counter next to his mug. As usual, you steal a little of it, and as usual, he says something about the weather and you pretend to listen. Everything is as usual and it bothers you. You know that physically, thanks to Medic’s healing, he’s basically no different than he was before the incident, but you don’t understand how he can act like nothing happened.

But it doesn’t bother you _too_ much, because you’re having a hard time feeling much of anything.

* * *

 

One thing does change. Sniper makes more of an effort to talk to you.

You pass him in the hall as he’s talking to Heavy, and he ends his conversation quickly so he can jog to catch up with you instead.

“G’day,” he says, his voice a little cheerier than it usually is.

Your brow creases. “Hello.” You have a hard time looking him in the eye recently, so you look past him, staring at the wall instead and keeping his face in your peripheral vision.

He seems thrown off by your reaction for some reason, and he falters, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly a couple of times before he says, “Nice weather we’re having.”

“Mm,” you reply.

“Should be nice and cool during our lesson later,” he continues.

“Oh,” you say, stopping in your tracks. It feels like you’re not really here, like this is a dream and the real you is somewhere very far away. You can’t feel your feet touching the ground, can’t feel the weight of gravity on you, and you can’t remember if you ever have. “I forgot about that. Can we - I’ve got something I have to do, can we put it off?” you ask, lying awkwardly. The truth is that you just aren’t ready to be alone with Sniper in that small wooden room again.

He seems genuinely surprised, probably because you’ve never cancelled a lesson before. “‘Course,” he mutters.

He doesn’t follow you when you continue heading briskly down the hall.

* * *

 

Sniper corners you by visiting the workshop when Dell’s not around. You can’t prove he did it intentionally, of course, but he never visits the bowels of the base so you can safely assume it was no accident. You’re in the middle of welding something when he shows up.

“You’ve been staring off into the distance constantly, like Medic removed your brain,” he says, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed, just like that day during your second week when he came by to report the broken sentry. His hat is pushed down lower than it usually is, his sunglasses opaque in the shade of its brim, and his mouth is pressed into an unreadable line. “What’s going on with you?”

You turn off your blowtorch and lift up your facemask. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this, Snipes.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Snipes? You picking up everyone’s nicknames now? Seems like you’re fitting in just fine to me.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” You hate that he can smile at all when you’re still thinking about what he looks like with blood on his shirt and on his hands and, worse, about what the inside of a skull looks like. “You know what I’m talking about.”

The corner of his mouth falls back down. “You’ll get used to it,” he tells you for a second time, as though the memory of him saying that while covered in blood isn’t burned into your brain.

“You could’ve died,” you say, trying to keep your voice even. “We both could’ve.”

“Pah!” The corner curves back up. “He was a bloody terrible shot.”

“He was barely six inches from your head!” you say, and you hate the way your voice has gotten louder and the way you set your blowtorch down a little too hard.

Both corners of his mouth dip down. “Six inches is more than you realize, believe me,” he says, deadly serious.

You pull the mask off your head entirely and drop it on the workbench. You rest your hands on the smooth, cold metal surface, looking for something to ground you. “I’m not going to argue about this,” you sigh.

“You’ve already decided on quitting?” He finally leaves the doorway, walking over to put his hand on your arm, just below your elbow. It’s a strange feeling, him touching you when he’s not adjusting your hold on a gun. “Before even giving me a chance to talk ya out of it? Because you did do good, first-timer. It was a hell of a shot.”

You can’t help it. You smile. It feels strange to smile and you’re not quite sure you’re over what’s happened, but it’s a real smile nevertheless. “Now you’re just being a dick. He was a foot away from me, if I’d missed I would’ve deserved to die.”

His face splits into a cheeky grin and you love the way it accentuates the lines around his mouth. You can just barely see the corners of his eyes crinkle behind his shades. “Oi, I’m trying to be comforting, will you just take the bloody compliment?”

You close your eyes and focus on the feeling of his warm fingers on your skin.

“Why’d you take this job?” he asks, his voice suddenly hushed. “I know they didn’t tell ya it was deadly, but you knew it’d be dangerous, and you’re bright, aren’tcha, you had to have known it was a shady offer.”

You take a deep breath and release it very slowly. “I really, really like money,” you say, truthfully. “The pay really was leagues better than any other job I interviewed for.”

You glance at him with a smile, and he’s grinning back at you crookedly.

“Now, that I can understand,” he says, amused. And then, more seriously, he continues, “You’re an asset here. Everyone can see the difference in Dell now that he’s not carrying the workload of a full engineering team all by himself. Don’t give up just yet, mate.”

It often strikes you as alarming how handsome he is for scruffy middle-aged murder-for-hire. The harsh lighting of the workshop accentuates the lines of his face, which should be turning you off, but instead you just want to run your fingers over his stubble and trace the shape of his high cheekbones. You wish he’d take his hat and glasses off for once in his life so you could get a look at his whole face and his hair.

“Okay,” you concede, “Okay, I’ll… I’ll give it some more time before I turn in my resignation.”

You turn to face him fully, and he starts to pull his hand away. Then his head tilts incrementally to the side and his brow develops a crease, like he’s thinking about something especially difficult. He awkwardly touches you again, resting both his hands on either of your arms, near your shoulders, holding you without really holding you.

“You’re finally lookin’ at me now,” he says, still smiling, his voice still soft.

You twist up your face, giving him an inquisitive look. You try to ignore the way your heart is hammering in your chest.

“Ah, just - you haven’t been lookin’ at me or smiling at all and I thought - well. Thought you might be pissed with me for getting shot.” He clears his throat and gets that look on his face that he always gets when he’s uncomfortable and doesn’t know what to say, an expression like he’s trying to take a shit in a public toilet and the guy in the stall next to him won’t shut up. He pulls away, takes a step back. “Right, then. If that’s all, uh, sorted, and you’re not quitting, then… I’ve, ah, got things to do. See ya ‘round.”

He turns and nearly bolts out of the room and, for the first time, you think there might be some truth to Dell’s assumption that there is something between you and Sniper.


	3. Chapter 3

You’ve developed two methods of coping to distract yourself from the dangerous reality of your workplace.

The first method is to throw yourself wholeheartedly into your work so that you don’t have time to think of much else. You suggest improvements to the machines more often, spend longer hours in the workshop, and Dell seems to approve. One evening when the two of you are cracking into some beers to celebrate finishing a particularly difficult turret prototype, he opens up a little.

“It’s how I used t’cope, too,” he tells you, without you prompting him. “Focusing on the machines. Easier not to think ‘bout the unsavory parts of the job when you’re up to your shoulders in grease and metal.”

The second method is a new experiment you’ve concocted. Sniper is the control and you are the variable.

The experiment is this: whenever possible, you have to make an attempt to flirt with him. Flirting is not your strong suit, and it’s _definitely_ not his, but that’s sort of the point.

The purpose of this, of course, is to test Dell’s hypothesis that Sniper genuinely wants company and your company in particular. It’s a little bit risky, because he could completely rebuff you and you’d be mortified. But Dell doesn’t seem like the type to carelessly make assumptions without reason, and the way Sniper’s behavior around you has been subtly changing over time supports his conclusion. The goal is to collect data: What kind of flirting does he respond best to? Does he flirt back? If so, how?

And most importantly, is he actually interested in you?

* * *

 

You wish you had the tact to start the experiment with sly, subtle comments and then ramp up the intensity over time, but you don’t, so you come out of the gate guns blazing.

You walk into the kitchen one morning and, low and behold, there’s Sniper presented to you on a silver platter in a way you haven’t seen him before - hat off, shades off. He’s sitting on one of the stools at the counter, his hat resting in his lap and his shades in one hand as he uses the index finger and thumb of his other hand to rub the sleep from his eyes.

You head straight for the pot of coffee sitting next to his plate and pour yourself a cup, boldly staring right at him. Jesus Christ, you think, why the hell does he wear that damn hat all the time when he’s got a full head of hair? You half expected him to be deliberately hiding a receding hairline or a bald spot. He’s got bags under his eyes but you’re so far gone that you find even that attractive. It’s nice to see his whole face at once.

He looks up at you, bleary eyed. “Mornin’,” he says, gruffly, clearly still half asleep.

“Good morning, Snipes,” you say, careful to monitor your tone so he’ll know you’re sincere and won’t think you’re ribbing him. “You look handsome without your hat.”

He halts in the middle of putting his glasses back on and looks at you, startled. “Wuh -” he starts, his voice a full octave higher than usual, then stops and clears his throat. “What,” he says, flatly, carefully lowering his brows into a straight line.

“I said, ‘Good morning, Snipes,’” you say, and this time you are being a little bit cheeky.

“No. After that,” he growls. He’s frowning a little and he almost looks _angry_ with you, so you stop teasing.

“I said you look handsome.” You take a sip of coffee, trying to hide behind your mug.

He sets his hat on the counter and stands up. He’s incredibly physically imposing when he’s angry and standing ramrod straight, practically towering over you, and you have to look up to see his stern face.

“Right,” he says, crossing his arms, “are you having a laugh at my expense? Who put you up to this? Scout? Spy?”

“Huh?” you ask, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Was it Demoman?” he continues, carrying on as though you hadn’t said anything. “I told that drunkard cyclops to mind his own business. If he bribed you into it, I’ll kill him. Did he bribe you? And whatever he told you about me, it’s not bloody true -”

“Sniper,” you interrupt, “what the fuck are you talking about? Nobody’s been talking about you behind your back and no one is laughing at you. It’s just a compliment. If it made you uncomfortable, I won’t do it again.”

His tense face slowly goes slack. “No?” he asks, his voice raising again. “Is that - really? It’s not - I don’t mind if you...”

He seems to lose steam and winds up just staring at you.

You feel like you can breathe again now that he’s calmed down. “That’s not how you always react to compliments, is it? Surely someone’s called you handsome before?”

He looks utterly baffled by this turn of events. “No,” he says, and then he he sucks in air through his teeth, bows his head, and massages his temples with one hand. “I mean, no, that’s not how I always react. ‘Course I’ve gotten bloody compliments before.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”  

“Sorry,” he says. “I just - you know how the mercs can be sometimes.”

You really don’t have a clue what he’s talking about, but you just nod anyway and try to look sympathetic.

“Right. Well.” He grabs his mug and hurriedly puts his hat back on. “You look nice, too,” he mumbles as he flees from the room.

* * *

 

You don’t know Demoman as well as some of the other mercs, so coming to him about this is a little awkward, but Sniper’s explosive reaction the other day has forced your hand. You end up asking Demo directly if he knew why Sniper reacted so poorly.

“Aw, for fuck’s sake,” says Demo, rolling his head back in an exhausted gesture. “I offer to be his wingman and he thinks I’m tryin’ to double cross him!”

You gape at him, resting your elbows on the table. “ _That’s_ what you did? He acted like you were part of a secret plot to ruin his life.”

Demo rolls his eye and leans in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “The Aussie’s got paranoia runnin’ through his veins. He wouldn’t know a genuine offer for help if it smacked him on his ass. Figures he’s the only person in the damn world who’d be suspicious of someone flatout callin’ him handsome.”

“So, wait,” you say, holding a hand up to stop him from saying more. “Can we back up? Why were you two talking about me in the first place?”

Demo fixes you with a look as though you’ve just asked him what nationality he is. “Oh, come on now. You can’t be serious, askin’ me that.”

You just raise your eyebrows at him.

“He’s holdin’ a candle for you, obviously.” He takes a swig of his drink. “Or more like a hundred candles, by my estimate, and he’s trying to pretend he ain’t got any candles at all and doing a poor job of it. I was tellin’ him he ought to make a move before someone else snaps you up, and when I said I’d be happy to have a chat with ye, he took it all wrong and thought I meant that I was plannin’ on outing him.”

“You just did out him,” you say.

“Oh, please!” he shouts, indignant. “You knew already, that’s why you’re askin’!”

You bite your lip. “I suspected.”

“Well,” he says, standing up and swaying a bit, “I wish ye the best of luck. You’ll need it if you’re tryin’ to convince him to let his guard down at all.”

* * *

 

You steal the last of Sniper’s brew and, as per your outstanding agreement, you deliver a fresh coffee pot to the nest a little while later. You intend to confront him about the other day if he’s not in a bad mood already. You feel like this isn’t something that should go unresolved and that you should make your intentions clear, even though the prospect of just coming out and saying it is terrifying.

It’s always a bit of a struggle to climb up the ladder one handed, so you’re tired once you’re finally up and almost don’t notice the jar of suspiciously yellow liquid sitting on the floor.

You turn to Sniper, who is intently peering through his scope at something and greets you only with a grunt.

You’d heard the rumors, of course. Nearly all of the other mercs had asked you if you’d seen the jars he kept in the nest and in his van. You’d never been inside his camper, actually, but you laughed off the idea that he pissed in jars in his sniper tower because you’d only ever seen _empty_ jars scattered about and assumed they were for something else.

“Of course I haven’t seen his _piss jars_!” you’d say. “How ridiculous!”

You can’t believe you were so wrong.

“Sniper,” you say, cautiously. “What the hell is that?”

He glances at you, then follows your gaze. “Aw, bugger,” he says, quickly snatching up the jar. “Sorry, mate. I usually put ‘em away when I hear you headed up the ladder, since you academics are so bloody sensitive about everything.”

And then he lifts up one of the crates, revealing _at least a dozen full jars hidden underneath_.

“No!” you wail, horrified, as you watch him stash away the jar with the rest. “No, you’ve got to be fucking with me!”

He gives you a beleaguered look while he sets the box back down. “Now, see, this is why I’ve been hiding ‘em. I can’t just leave my post to go piss while I’m on watch, what d’you expect me to do?”

“Okay, fine, but why do you _keep them_!?” you shriek.

He shrugs helplessly. “Just in case!”

“IN CASE OF WHAT,” you holler at the top of your lungs.

“In case I need to throw one at someone!” he shouts back.

You just stare at him, wide-eyed and baffled, place the coffee pot down on top of the crate, and immediately start climbing back down the ladder, having completely forgotten what you wanted to talk to him about.

* * *

 

Later, he throws one of the jars at Spy as a sort of demonstration. The two of you watch while he shrieks and calls Sniper a “filthy little urine-soaked bushman,” before stomping off to attempt to save his thousand dollar suit.

Sniper hollers after him, “You’re the only one soaked in urine here, ya snake!”

“Okay,” you say, cheerfully, once your laughter subsides. “That was pretty good.”

His face lights up with an almost childlike expression of pride.

* * *

 

Sniper is more unpredictable than you originally anticipated. You clearly don’t know him as well as you thought you did. Demo could be catastrophically wrong about Sniper’s feelings. You’re rethinking your decision to confront him directly.

So you return to the experiment, intending to get a better read on him.

* * *

 

You hit your fourth bullseye that day and Sniper rewards you with an impressed whistle. “Getting better, fresh blood.”

“I’ll be better than you pretty soon.”

He tilts his head and gives you a warning look. “Watch it,” he growls.

You blow a raspberry at him.

He sits down next to you on your crate, your legs touching, and gestures for you to hand over the gun. As you pass it over and stare at your thigh pressed against his, it strikes you how comfortable the two of you are together, and how much more awkward he used to be with you.

He’s still awkward sometimes, of course. But he used to barely be able to talk to you and now he’s capable of cracking jokes.

“I’ll show you how a real sniper does it,” he says, raising the gun.

In a matter of seconds, he’s eliminated all four of the remaining targets he set up out in the desert. For the last one, he obviously shows off - shooting it once, reloading with a flourish that you haven’t seen him use before, and then shooting it again without making a second hole, splitting hairs to hit it in the exact same spot a second time.

“Okay, hot shot. Since when were you a show off? Are you trying to seduce me with your marksmanship?” you laugh.

“Is it working?” he asks, and you’d be sure he’s actually _flirting back_ if his tone wasn’t so cautious.

“Maybe,” you reply, coyly, and he has the nerve to look smug about it.

* * *

 

Sniper drops by the base after a long, hot day in the nest and slides up behind you as you’re cooking yourself dinner.

“You smell like dirty socks,” you tell him, shying away and wrinkling your nose. “Go bathe.”

He grins mischievously and raises his arms, sweaty pit stains on full display. “What, you don’t enjoy my natural Aussie musk, mate?”

He actually goes in for a hug and, to your absolute terror, you are genuinely torn between allowing him to hug you and pushing him away.

You compromise by pretending to be disgusted while you press your face into his awful, sweaty shirt. He laughs as you fake a horrified groan.

“You love it,” he teases as he pulls away. He takes off his hat and ruffles his hair and he’s wearing that awful, irresistible, crooked grin. “Some consider Aussie sweat an aphrodisiac, ya know.”

Your heart threatens to burst from your chest and serve itself to him on fine china.

“In that case, keep it up and I’ll be too aroused to go to our lessons,” you scoff. “I’ll smell you in the nest and perish from lust.”

“Ha! You’re just looking for an excuse not to look at my ugly mug anymore,” he says, leaning against the counter.

“Quite the opposite, really,” you admit, and you forget to say it with a humorous lilt.

You can’t tell if the red color on his cheeks is from the sun, or if he’s actually blushing.

* * *

 

He hasn’t reacted poorly to your flirting since the first time, and if anything his responses have been encouraging. The two of you have built up a playful back and forth and it’s easy to feel emboldened when he teases you back.

It gets to the point where it’s frankly shocking that neither of you have made a move yet.

You think maybe he’s finally going to do it when he suggests you come back to his camper after shooting practice.

“I thought you usually stayed here and kept watch for at least a few more hours?” you ask as the two of you head down the ladder.

“Soldier is taking watch early today,” he explains, his weight making an impact in the dirt as he jumps off the ladder.

“You guys do know you don’t have to do that anymore, right? Dell and I set up that camera system last month, the one that detects any objects on the horizon and sends out an alert if it finds any.”

“Mercenaries are creatures of habit, fresh blood,” he says.

“You’ve _got_ to give me a different nickname,” you whine. “I’ve been here for a few months now, I’m hardly fresh.”

“Stale blood, then,” he suggests.

You just laugh in response.

You step into his camper as he holds the door open. The inside is surprisingly normal, just a tiny kitchen, a loft bed, and cramped sitting area. Adorably, he’s hung a boomerang and some posters and sports pennants on the walls. The only thing unusual is -

“Oh, come on now, really?” you say, incredulously, picking up a jar of piss from the windowsill.

“No toilet in here,” he says, shrugging.

You groan. “At this point I’m not sure you’ve ever pissed in a toilet in your life.”

He steps towards you, and you think, this is it. He’s finally going to press you against the wall of his shitty camper and fuck you.

Instead, he turns and opens up a storage box next to the sitting area and you want to fucking die.

He pulls out several plastic bags of a mysterious meat.

“I made jerky from the buck I nabbed the other day,” he says, like that’s a normal thing that everyone does. “Thought ya might like some.”

“So you’re finally giving me your meat?” you ask, then wince at the lameness of the innuendo.

He snorts. “If you’d like to try it,” he says. “I’m warnin’ ya, though, it’s not for everyone.”

“I can handle it,” you declare, taking one of the bags out of his hands and stepping so close to him that you can feel his breath on your face.

His eyes are widened behind his glasses and he tilts his head slightly, like he’s expecting you to kiss him and he doesn’t want your noses to bump together. You wonder if you should - if it would be crossing a line to do that. You’re openly sexual with jokes sometimes, but it’s never gotten more physical than benign over the clothes touching.

At the last second, you chicken out, and back away towards the camper door. You play it off as just another playful joke by giggling and wrinkling your nose at him.

“Tease,” he accuses you, and his smile looks almost melancholy.

You struggle to not accuse him of being the same.

* * *

 

“What’s your real name?” you ask him casually while the two of you watch the sunset from the back of his camper.

He takes a drag on his cigarette before he answers. “What’s it matter?”

“Need to know it so I have something to moan when I’m masturbating later.”

He inhales when he should be exhaling and chokes on the smoke and you let out an uproarious laugh.

“You’re too easy to tease!” you shriek gleefully.

“Piss off,” he says between coughs, but the coughing quickly devolves into a chuckle.

You grin at him and the two of you turn back to the sunset.

“M’name’s Mundy,” he says.

“Mundy,” you say, experimentally, and you conclude that the name feels good on your tongue.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to my friend (bog wump on ao3) for inspiring a lot of the dialogue in the first bit of this chapter and giving me some crit
> 
> also, this is the first chapter that's explicitly AFAB reader and i've ended up using genitalia specific words so please be aware if that's something you're not into
> 
> also also i promise im reading and appreciating all the comments youre leaving!!! im just terrible at responding bc i never know what to say and then i forget about it im sorry

Dell invites you to play poker again after the two of you finish a project. You quickly regret it when Demoman is the only other person to show up. Demo is the only one you’ve openly spoken to about Sniper, and Dell, easily one of your closest friends among the mercs, has sensed something was up from the beginning, so it’s not hard to guess why you’ve ended up alone with them.

You’re all at the table, beers in front of you. You scowl at your cards.

“You guys have clearly set this up to give me the third degree about Sniper, so let’s get it over with,” you grumble.

With your permission, Demo doesn’t waste any more time. “You’re gonna kill the bushman, ya know.” He shoots you a weary look as he tosses two toothpicks - there were no chips in the base, so you made do - into the pool. “His wee, shrivelled heart cannae take what ye doin’ to him. Put the poor dummy outta his misery.”

“What I’m doing to _him_?!” you exclaim, indignant.

Dell frowns at you as he matches Demo’s bet. “S’not exactly subtle, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. The way you two look at each other, I mean.”

“It’s cruel, is what it is,” says Demo, his brow furrowed.

“Now wait just a fucking second,” you say, throwing your cards down. “I haven’t done anything wrong -”

“Ach, here you go again, pretendin’ ye got no clue what ye doin’!” Demo cries, throwing his cards down as well. “We’re all sufferin’ ‘cuz you two cannae sort ye shit out!”

“He’s been… crankier than usual, recently,” Engineer explains, cautiously. “We just think maybe it’s gone on a lil’ too long -”

“Stop! Who is ‘we’?” you ask, alarmed. “You keep saying ‘we’ and ‘all.’ Who else is talking about this besides you two?”

Dell and Demo exchange a look that you can’t read.

“ _Who is ‘we’?_ ” you ask again, your eyes wide.

“Everyone,” Demo says, like it’s obvious.

“Has everyone been talking behind my back!?” you shout, leaning back in your chair and massaging your temples. “I thought Sniper was paranoid, but it turns out he was right - you’ve all been _gossiping_ about me and him!”

“Well, it’s hard to miss what’s happenin’!” Demo looks at you like you’ve grown a second head. “He hardly leaves his nest or his camper, but when he does it’s like a bloody vengeful spirit has come to haunt us. Pardon us for noticin’ we have Sniper the Horny Ghost floating about!”

“He does tend to brood,” agrees Dell, as he busies himself with collecting the abandoned playing cards. “And most of us have overheard how y’all talk to each other when you think no one else is ‘round.”

“I can’t believe this is fucking happening,” you say, running your hands down your face.

“Look,” says Dell, reproachfully. “We ain’t doin’ this to embarrass ya. Some of us are just…”

“Tired,” interjects Demo, emphatically.

Dell shoots him a glare. “Concerned,” he corrects. “It’s gonna come to a head at some point if you don’t do something.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” you ask. “I’ve been more aggressively flirtatious than I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve done everything short of breaking into his camper and laying nude on his bed.”

Engineer chuckles awkwardly and his ears turn a little red.

“Aye, do that then,” Demo says, seriously. “If ye ask me, the man’s just got the world’s worst case of blue balls and you just need to lay him already.”

“Oh my god,” you moan, burying your face in your hands. “I can’t just do that.”

“Frankly, I dunnae care what ye do,” says Demo. “Just do something so we can all have a bit of peace and stop thinkin’ about the bushman’s awful, boring sex life.”

* * *

 

You wander into the kitchen late at night, looking for something to snack on, and Sniper’s there, the parts of his gun spread out across the large table as he meticulously cleans them.

“You ever sleep?” you ask, shuffling over to the table to join him.

“Rarely,” he says, and you can tell he’s only half joking.

“So,” you start, carefully, as you settle into a seat. Now’s as good a time as any, you suppose, and you’ve been putting it off for far too long. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

He pauses what he’s doing momentarily to assess how serious you are. “Go on then,” he says.

“So,” you say again, unsure where to start. “You’re all about professionalism, yeah?”

He resumes rubbing a cloth over the lens of his rifle’s scope. “Yeah.”

“And our workplace, if you want to call it that, doesn’t have a policy against romance between coworkers.”

He stops again and grunts as a response.

“So, would you say a romance in our workplace would be unprofessional?”

“Where’re you going with this?” he asks, quietly, putting the scope and the cloth down on the table.

“It’s just a question,” you reply, speaking so softly you may as well be whispering.

“It’s not,” he says.

You can’t tell what expression he’s got behind his shades, so you look away.

“You have been,” he murmurs, and his voice sounds positively dangerous, “absolutely bloody _relentless_. And you expect me to believe it’s ‘just a question’?”

You continue to look down at your hands in your lap.

“Look at me,” he says.

“I’ll look at you if you take your stupid fucking hat and glasses off so I can at least see your face.”

So he does, setting them both on the table with the pieces of his gun, and you look.

It surprises you how worried his eyes are. His frown looks much less stern when you can see the rest of his face.

“Why’re you doing this to me?” he asks.

You’re taken aback and you feel your face screwing up. “Doing what?”

“Pretending. Teasing me.”

“You still think this is just an act?” The volume of your voice is rising in sheer disbelief.

“You expect me to believe it’s not? That someone like you, with an education and chance at a normal career, would ever be interested in an assassin who prefers to live in a cramped camper than a real building like some kind of hermit?” He leans forward, his hands on the table, pointed towards you, palms up, in an imploring gesture.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. “You can’t tell me you’ve never had a regular civilian be interested in you before.”

“‘Course I have,” he hisses. “The issue is that after I made my career change, every last bloody one of ‘em have been interested because they thought I was _dangerous_ . And I am, but not in a _fun_ way, and the second they realize I’m not some motorcycle-riding free-spirited layabout, suddenly they’re not so damn interested anymore.”

He leans back, looking grimly satisfied with himself. His face looks almost gaunt in the dim lighting. “But you, mate, you already know that. You know _me_. And I can believe that you enjoy riling me up and making naughty jokes and, hell, I can even enjoy it with you so long as I don’t let myself buy into the sham. But there ain’t a damn chance in hell you can see the best and worst of what I’ve got to offer and still be interested, so pretending you’re serious about me is crossing a line.”

“Oh my god, you are so fucking _dense_ sometimes,” you mutter, and then you stand up, stalk over to him, plant your hands on either side of his face, and lean down to press your lips against his.

You brush your thumb over the edge of his sideburn, tilting your head to kiss him better, darting your tongue out to lick at his lips, and suddenly his hand is at the back of your neck, pulling you down and closer to him. He releases a low groan into your open mouth.

It feels strange, finally giving in to the impulses you’ve had since you met him. It’s almost like a dam has broken and you have to stop yourself from climbing into his lap and fucking him right there.

You pull back from the kiss to inspect his face.

“I didn’t… I didn’t think you would go this far with it,” he says, breathlessly. He looks a little bit shell-shocked.

You sigh, exhausted by his protesting. You run your fingers through his hair, pausing to admire how his breath catches briefly as you do so. You half sit on the table in front of him, your arms around his neck, and you tell him, softly, “I don’t know how I can make it any more obvious, Snipes. Apparently you’ll find a way to misconstrue just about anything, so I’ll say it as directly as possible.”

You’re embarrassed to be honest about your feelings without relying on jokes to cushion them and your instinct is to look away, but you’re afraid he’ll find it suspicious, so you maintain eye contact. “I find you ridiculously, heartbreakingly attractive. I like you because of who you are, not in spite of it. For once, can you please just take it at face value when I tell you that you turn me on and I enjoy spending time with you?” You watch as his expression goes from shocked to soft and dreamy-eyed. “And if you make me say it again, I swear on my fucking life that I will march right out of this room and turn in my resignation.”

He stands up abruptly and your hands fall to your sides.

He touches your face with his gloveless hand, his thumb sliding over your cheek, his palm a little warm and clammy as always. He’s watching your expression carefully, assessing you, waiting to see if you’ll pull away.

“You,” he says, sighing the words out like he’s been holding his breath for a long time, “are a real drongo to be doing this with me.”

Then he’s got his arms around you and he’s hunching over to kiss you again.

You grab frantically at his collar, trying to pull him closer as he nips at your bottom lip. One of his hands - broad and warm and fuck, you’ve imagined this so many times - is brushing down your side, over your hip, then back again. His other hand is purely dedicated to pressing on your back and keeping your chest crushed against his as his lips move against yours.

He pulls away. You look up at him and admire his flushed face, brushing your fingers against his stubble, watching as his glazed eyes look you over and his adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. He looks exhausted, like he might fall over dead at any moment, but maybe that’s just because the lighting is accentuating the bags under his eyes.

“Fuck,” he says, his voice low, and you relish in how turned on he sounds. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“I have several suggestions,” you say, grinning.

He laughs, a deep, wheezy sound, turning his head away like he’s embarrassed and screwing his eyes shut.

You cup his cheek with one hand and turn his head back towards you, kissing him heatedly. He makes a muffled, startled noise, tilting his head and brushing his tongue against yours. Both his hands move to your hips and you take the opportunity to pull your chest away from his, dragging one of your hands down his torso, feeling the suggestion of muscle beneath his clothes.

“Please,” you murmur needily into his mouth, you fingers darting down to brush over his belt.

He inhales sharply and pulls away, shaking his head a little. “Not here,” he says, glancing with concern over at the door. “My camper?”

You nod and step away from the table.

Instead of following you, he immediately starts hurriedly reassembling his rifle.

“You’re not serious right now,” you say, flatly, crossing your arms and staring at him.

He sends you a scandalized look. “What, you don’t expect me to _leave_ it here, do you?”

You roll your eyes in response and watch his hands as he works quickly. To his credit, it doesn’t take him long, and seeing his hands deftly handle the parts is a little bit of a treat.

He reaches for his hat and glasses, but you snatch them up before he can. He furrows his brow at you.

You put his hat on your own head and tuck his shades into your shirt, letting them hang from your collar. “You are not hiding half your face from me while we fuck, Snipes,” you explain as you make for the door.

He gives you a lopsided grin and, this time, he’s quick to follow you. His hand comes to a rest on your lower back, forcing you to practically jog to keep up with his long strides. His other hand clutches his rifle with white knuckles.

Once you’re outside and his camper is only a few feet away, he turns sharply, stepping in front of you. You only have a moment to register his brows lowering dangerously before he’s leaning down, his free hand at the back of your neck, his lips connecting with yours. He pulls you backwards then turns you so your positions are reversed as he gently sucks on your bottom lip. Your back hits the cool metal of his camper, his hand leaving your neck to slide around your back, pressing your bodies together again.

You reach blindly for the door handle next to you, missing a few times before you catch it and awkwardly push the door open.

Sniper draws back, only to growl into your ear. “Best get inside now, hm?”

You slip out from under him and step inside. He follows, leaving his rifle by the door, closing and locking it behind him. He looms over you, grabbing his hat from your head and tossing it on the small table. He does the same with his shades, snatching them from off your collar as his gaze roams your face. His expression is difficult to read - his eyes are still hazy, but his thick brows are lowered and his mouth is pressed in a straight line.

“Tell me,” he says, standing so close to you and bending down so that you can feel his breath on you, could lean forward and touch your noses together. “Have you thought about this before? About me?”

You bite your lip. “You know I have. Have you?”

“You know I have,” he says, throwing your words back at you.

“Do I?” you ask. “Because it seems to me I’m the one always complimenting you, instead of the other way around -”

He makes a low, grumbling noise deep in his throat. His mouth twitches into a frown. His gaze is stuck on your mouth.

“What do you think about when you look at me?” you ask, boldly. “I’ve told you I think you’re handsome, that I masturbate to the thought of you.”

“You were just having a laugh back then,” he argues, but he sounds unsure.

“Was I?” You raise an eyebrow at him. “It’s your turn to share.”

He looks you in the eyes, mulling it over. “Turn around,” he says.

You can’t help but smirk a bit. “Are you _embarrassed_ -”

He sighs, rolling his eyes. “Shut your cheeky little mouth and turn around.”

You turn, facing the ladder leading up to the loft bed. He’s quick to wrap his arms around you, one hand resting on your stomach and pressing your back against him, and his other hand gliding up to your chest to grope at you, aimlessly. You can both hear and feel him breathing next to your ear, and you shiver.

“When I look at you,” he begins, and his voice is actually straining with the effort of his words, rasping, “I think about how fuckin’ incredible you look, how badly I want to see you wrecked underneath me.”

He pinches your nipple through your clothes and you whimper with need, shifting your weight on your feet and inadvertently rubbing your ass against his crotch. He’s half hard already, you can feel it.

“I think about tearin’ your bloody clothes off so I can see you, all of you, so I can put my mouth on every part of you, feel your skin against mine.” He moves his other hand from your stomach to your pants, struggling with the button there, his movements bordering on frantic. You grab at his arm with one hand, desperate for something to hold on to, reaching back with your other hand to clutch at his shirt. “I wanna take you apart, ya know. I wanna make you beg for it.”

“And ‘course I eat it up when you come on to me,” he admits, finally unbuttoning your pants. He shoves them and your underwear down, letting them catch around your thighs. You’re acutely aware of how you’re now exposed, cool air against your skin, his rough fingertips brushing over the lips of your pussy. “‘Course I bloody do. Someone like you, lookin’ up at someone like me with a smile and stars in their eyes - who wouldn’t?” His fingers slide between your folds, slick with your wetness, gently pressing against your clit. He ruts against you, bucking his hips against your ass. “Who wouldn’t, love?”

You want to fuck him so bad that it feels like you’ll die if you don’t.

“Snipes, for God’s sake, just -” you start.

“I’ve told you my name,” he growls, interrupting you, and you can feel the vibration of his deep voice against the skin of your throat as he tucks his face into the crook of your neck. “You’d best use it.”

“Fuck, Mundy,” you exhale.

He whispers your name with a certain degree of reverence and abruptly presses two fingers inside of your cunt.

You moan, feeling yourself clench around him, and he actually fucking snarls, pumping his fingers in and out of you slowly. You writhe but he holds you still, his arms wrapped firmly around you.

“Fuck, you’re nice and wet, hm? Did all that talk turn you on?” He scissors his fingers inside of you before pulling them out. Disgustingly, he wipes them on your shirt before pulling the fabric over your head. He quickly rids you of the rest of your clothes, too, leaving them scattered across the cramped floor and table.

He quickly resumes groping you, his fingers pinching at your nipple without interference this time, his hips flush with your ass again. Being so completely bare just turns you on more.

“Please, Mundy,” you whimper.

“Please _what_?” he growls. “Gotta say it, love.”

“Please _fuck me_ ,” you beg.

“C’mon then,” he says, pleased, nudging you towards the ladder.

Instead, you turn around quickly, grabbing at his hands and pulling them off you, and he falters, his brows shooting upwards and his lips parting.

“Oh no,” you say, “you’re not doing this with all those clothes on.”

You grab at his collar, yanking him down to your level and kissing him. You quickly start on the buttons of his shirt, and, to your relief, he starts unbuckling his belt. You push his shirt off, sliding it down his leanly muscled arms, as he struggles to kick off his boots while you nip at his bottom lip. You run your hands down his chest, pulling away from the kiss to admire him as he shoves down his pants. He seems a little ashamed, looking off to the side as you trail your fingers over old scars and a dark smattering of hair on his chest, over muscles cushioned by a thin layer of fat, over the slight roundness of his stomach.

He clears his throat, presumably in an effort to get you to hurry up. He’s still looking away, his brow creased.

“Mundy,” you say, reproachfully. “I’ve been daydreaming about what you look like naked since I first started working here. Let me enjoy this.”

You sink to your knees, your hands at his hips, your face eye level with his cock. It’s impressive, you think, as you slide your fingers over his thick thighs. It’s long and not too thick and has a subtle vein running down the length of it. His coarse happy trail is also appreciated.

He glances down at you, resting a hand at the back of your head, gently. He doesn’t seem capable of keeping eye contact for long, because he looks away again quickly.

“I’m not accustomed to attention,” he says, his voice soft.

“Then let’s get you accustomed,” you say, wrapping your hand around the base of his cock.

You pump him experimentally and he sighs, closing his eyes and letting his head tilt back. You lick a broad stripe up the underside of his length before taking it into your mouth, running your tongue over the head. He moans, his hips stuttering forward and pushing his cock deeper into your mouth. You oblige him, moaning around him and fitting as much as you can down your throat before gagging, pulling back, and gasping for air.

“Crikey,” he mutters, glancing down at you again. “You are awfully enthusiastic, aren’tcha?”

You bark out a laugh before taking him into your mouth again, bobbing your head on his dick and allowing your own spit to run down your chin. You attempt to push it further down your throat each time, pressing your tongue against the underside of his dick and sucking hard as you pull back.

It’s not long before he’s tugging gently at your hair, pulling you away. “Get up on the bed before I cum down your throat,” he growls.

You scramble up the ladder, flipping onto your back once you’re up, watching as he crawls up after you. His back nearly touches the roof of the camper when he’s on his hands and knees.

“Flip over,” he says, making a rolling gesture with his finger as he crawls on top of you.

“Oh, come on,” you whine, but you roll onto your stomach anyway. “I can’t see your face?”

He grunts, adjusting his position. “Next time,” he promises, and your stomach flips at the idea.

He positions himself between your legs, one hand on your upper back pressing you into the mattress, the other pulling at your hips and forcing you to arch so that your ass is in the air. His cock is inside you without much effort, sliding in and stretching you open easily thanks to your spit from the blowjob and your own arousal. Both of you groan at the same time, and your fingers grip at the sheets as his hand moves away from your back, his elbow dropping to the mattress to support himself.

“Bloody hell, you’re fuckin’ tight,” he mutters, his head dipping down low, his forehead resting between your shoulder blades. He doesn’t move right away, just stays pressed deep inside of you.

You whimper and buck against him. “Mundy, c’mon,” you plead.

He lets out a choked sound as you clench around him. “Give me a minute, you’re so damn impatient,” he growls, leaning down further and pressing his chest against your back. You can feel his chest hair tickling your skin, feel the muscles in his stomach tensing with the effort. His hand on your hip slides around towards your front, reaching under you to brush his fingers against you clit.

You moan as he circles your clit once, bucking against him again.

“See, now, isn’t that much better?” he says, his voice strained and rough and his mouth near your ear again.

“Yessss,” you hiss, and finally he starts to fuck you.

He rolls his hips, his cock sliding out of you and then abruptly back in, spreading you open. You moan, pressing the side of your face into the mattress, and it feels like he’s absolutely surrounding you, and it’s warm, so warm, ungodly warm. Your cunt squeezes his cock as he bottoms out inside of you roughly bumping up against your cervix and you practically wail.

He’s a mess above you, panting harshly as he rams inside of you, fucking you into the mattress. You hear your name whispered amongst the swear words, feel his fingers frantically rubbing over your clit in a back and forth motion. Your cunt is practically dripping, and he dips his fingers in the wetness, smearing it between your pussy lips and over your clit.

You moan his name and he moans yours, his thrusts growing erratic. Your cunt clenches violently, the heat of his cock inside you threatening to set you aflame.

“Oh, God,” he chokes out, “you sound so fuckin’ good, love.” You’re not sure if he’s talking about your moans or the absolutely filthy sounds your pussy is making as he fucks you.

He picks up the pace and pressure of his fingers, his breaths rasping as you clench your teeth, feeling your orgasm coming. You nearly sob as you tense up, your cunt fluttering around his cock and you vision blurring. He sucks in air between his teeth and pulls his hand away, using both arms now to brace himself against the bed as he slams into you, fucking you through it as you cum, and all you feel is your body shuddering and his dick spreading your cunt open.

You go slack underneath him, moaning as the high fades, and he fucks you a moment longer, snarling as his hips jerk forward. He pulls out abruptly, his breath stuttering as he quickly readjusts his own position to wrap his hand around his cock, and he cums with a sharp cry onto the sheets between your legs.

He collapses next to you afterwards, his back to the wall, the two of you packed into the space like sardines. One of his arms is slung over your back, the other smashed in between your bodies.

You shift to face him, uncomfortably warm but unwilling to do anything about it. He has his eyes closed as he pants, and you take the opportunity to admire his short hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, his high cheekbones and sunken cheeks. Particularly appealing is the flush that travels all the way from the tip of one ear, across his cheeks and nose to the other.

He opens his eyes, blinking rapidly, and catches you staring, but you’re beyond caring at this point, so you just grin at him.

He wraps his arms around you, pulling you towards him. He looks exhausted, but he grins back at you, that awful, terrible, heart-stopping grin, letting it slowly spread across his face.


End file.
